The third session was quite multi-faceted, so I’ll be concentrating my reflection on only two activities. Firstly, as a means of introduction to the SAT (Self-Assessment Tool for Aspiring Leaders), we were asked in our groups and/or individually to define some characteristics, competencies, and practices of effective leaders. Following that initial brainstorming, we were asked to walk around and share our thoughts with people in other groups, in hopes of starting conversations, and perhaps identifying some common threads. On the surface, this activity seemed simple enough (kind of like a think-pair-share), but it ended up being shockingly difficult.

The majority of the brainstorming time in my initial group centered around defining and differentiating between characteristics, competencies, and practices. However, once the walk-around began, I quickly discovered that different groups and individuals had defined each term in different ways. A large part of almost every conversation I had was focused on deciding how to recategorize their information into my framework rather than the free and open sharing of ideas.

Once we returned to our groups, we debriefed and shared the information we gathered from other people. During this time I will admit that I was not the most active participant in the conversation as I still needed to process and categorize everything from my conversations in a satisfactory way before I could move on. Using my own thoughts and those of my group, I see:

Would you agree with the definitions for each category? Would you add any other traits, skills/competencies, or actions to any of the lists?

Secondly, the course facilitators introduced the SAT document and invited us to explore and discuss it within our groups, and to begin pondering our own personal leadership growth plan based on our strengths and weaknesses we identified in the document. Again, I admit that this was another discussion period where I was not very active. The first time I am introduced to something, my preference is to study it individually before talking it through with others, so I spent the majority of this time studying and absorbing the various sections of the document.

I still don’t have much more to say about the SAT or my own plan as I haven’t had many opportunities to continue my reflection since the third session, what with a four-day school excursion, midterm report cards, and life getting in the way. Unfortunately, session 4 begins in less than 48 hours and I am supposed to have a rough outline of my leadership growth plan to share with my group facilitator. Based on my (limited) thinking so far, I think I will need to bring a few ideas to be fleshed out and to receive feedback. I have yet to strike the plan that feels just right – not too small and narrow, but not too large and daunting. Hopefully I’ll find Goldilocks tomorrow.

Between sessions 1 and 2, each course participant was given a login and asked to complete the 4D-i assessment from One Smart World. Our second session together involved examining and interpreting our individual results, connecting with others who received similar results, and learning about those who had different results.

The Assessment

The 4D-i is an inventory of your personal operating style – your preferred methods to solve problems, make decisions, and communicate with others. For the purposes of this blog post, I will be greatly simplifying the 4D-i, but for more information you can visit the website, especially the sample portfolio.

The first part of the results is your colour which indicates your overall preference. There are three possibilities:

Red – Decision-Making

Red thinkers like to stop the process and get straight to making decisions and solving problems. They use strategies such as getting to the heart of issues, relying on past experience to guide actions, and listening to their gut feelings to move forward decisively.

Yellow – Understanding

Yellow thinkers slow down the process to gather data and understand people’s feelings. They collect, organize, and analyse information, express their own feelings and empathize with the opinions of others, and seek clarity on both fronts before taking action.

Green – Creating

Green thinkers delve into the process to generate more insights, ideas, and viewpoints. They brainstorm, seek out alternative problems and solutions, challenge current ideas and methods, and use their intuition to guide decision making.

Along with your colour, you are also categorized as warm, cool, or balanced. Warm thinkers prefer emotional strategies such as expressing feelings, empathizing with others, trusting your own heart, and making decisions based on your personal values. Cool thinkers employ logical strategies, including getting to the crux of a problem, gathering data, asking questions, and using past experiences. Balanced thinkers are equally comfortable using emotional and logical strategies.

The final section is a score of your Personal Spirit, which includes the strength of your outlook on life or challenging situations, your sense of having control to impact others in positive ways, and your initiative in the face of difficult tasks.

The Results

I came out of this process identified as a Balanced Yellow, with a slight edge for emotional over logical thinking, and as high in personal spirit with my initiative being my strongest factor. After discussing with fellow yellows, I found this to be a very accurate description of how I operate. It takes me time to come to a decision. When faced with a difficult decision or problem, my first instinct is to gather, structure, and organize all available and pertinent information systematically. I also take into account how different solutions or possibilities will make me feel. Further, if other people will be implicated in or affected by this problem or decision, then I feel strongly that I need to gather their thoughts, opinions, and feelings, and do my utmost to arrive at a conclusion that will be satisfying to everyone. I would definitely classify myself as a people pleaser – I want everyone to be on board with decisions and action plans when working in a team. On the flip side, I can sometimes find the whole process of making decisions exhausting. As well, because of my operating style, I have been described by friends and family as being very indecisive, which they can find at times quite frustrating. As a future leader, I need to be aware of the way my time-consuming actions are perceived by others.

Red was my second highest preference, with a very strong score in being values-driven when making decisions as well as needing to ensure that my solutions and conclusions are valid. However, I was almost angry at myself that I scored 0 (meaning I have no preference) for following my gut intuition to make a decision. After some reflection, I realized that I do sometimes have a gut feeling at the start of a problem or decision process. And occasionally after my exhaustive information gathering and emotional soul-searching, the conclusion I arrive at is in fact the one my gut told me at the start. Yet I cannot bring myself to trust my gut and just make a quick decision. As a future leader, I will need to work on improving this strategy so that I don’t frustrate my team with the time it takes for me to arrive at decisions.

Green was my lowest preference. It was actually by far the least prevalent operating system in the room. Out of the 30 or so people in the course, I believe there were only two people who showed a strong preference for green creative thinking. As a teacher of Dramatic Arts, a class where I work to foster and encourage creative thinking and taking time to explore during the creative process, I was upset that I scored so low in my preference for using creative strategies in my own life. I also thought with further reflection that the generally low scores among the 30 of us in this course might be a symptom of the school system and of our larger society. Many of us have seen Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk “How Schools Kill Creativity”. Taking the time to brainstorm, seeking alternative solutions or even alternative questions, envisioning new possibilities and scenarios – all of these strategies are often discouraged in favour of taking decisive action and moving forward with initiatives. As a future leader, I need to remember to practice what I preach to my Drama students (and to my students in my other courses for that matter) and take time to explore and experiment, as well as encouraging my team to do so.

Finally, after hearing from my fellow yellows as well as the greens and reds in the room, the importance of shared, team-based leadership (one of my personal goals from my post-session 1 reflection) really sunk in. Successful leadership would come from a team of leaders, each with slightly different preferences, who could bring a balanced approach to challenges.

Now I’d like to hear from you – for anyone else who has done the 4D-i assessment: What were your results? Did you feel that they accurately described your operating style? How are you using your knowledge of your preferences to affect how you approach problems or how you work on a team? For anyone who hasn’t done the assessment: What colour do you think is your preference? Are you a warm emotional thinker, or a cool logical thinker? Which colour preference do you think would be the best for an effective leader to have? Do you see any other advantages or disadvantages to each colour preference? I’m looking forward to your comments.

Going into my first night of Leadership 1 through HWDSB, I honestly had no idea what to expect. The facilitators had shared some documents electronically prior to the session that I perused, as well as a list of the groups we would be working in for the duration of the course. Upon first glance, I almost felt disappointed or unsure about my group, as there was only one other secondary teacher, and my group facilitator was to be an elementary principal. My first reaction was worry – would my interactions in this group be relevant enough for my situation? But I took a step back and realized my bias. Cross-panel relationships and connections could be so fruitful and interesting to enrich my perspective, and it is an area in my personal practice that I have not yet truly explored.

I ran with this idea when I arrived at the session and we were asked to contemplate our intentions in registering for this course. Looking around the room, I was easily one of, if not the youngest teacher in the room. So why would a teacher in only her sixth year in the profession be sitting in this course? Here are some of my responses to the questions of Why Leadership? and Why Leadership Now?

1) Networking

Beginning with joining Twitter in October 2012, I have been striving to build a strong PLN. Through the face-to-face contacts made in this leadership course, I can diversify my PLN with cross-panel and system connections.

2) Informal Leadership Roles

I have engaged in some informal leadership roles over my first few years of teaching. I have participated on committees for Numeracy and AER, and I have facilitated PD sessions with small groups and with a whole staff. I am hoping to find more of these opportunities and learn how to better engage other colleagues in the process.

3) Experimenting with Shared Leadership

Coordinated, shared leadership is part of the strategic directions of the HWDSB, and it is a skill that I know that I personally need to further develop. I had several roles as a student leader in university, and as stated above, I have engaged in some informal leadership as a teacher, but my comfort zone is individual leadership. I grew up much preferring to work alone than with others. However, collaboration and working within a team of leaders is essential and is part of today’s educational reality. I hope that through my experiences in this course I can reorient my preference towards shared , team-based leadership.

I am certain that with further reflection I would generate more responses to this question of Why Leadership? , but I landed on the above reasons at the end of my first session. To really address my second question, Why Leadership Now? , I think I would reply that because as a student, I was almost always in leadership positions, and it has felt unusual, and dare I say unnatural, to not be in consistent leadership roles as a professional.